Arnold the Miracle Duck

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck in Northern New Mexico, it just might be Arnold, the miracle duck of San Pedro.

Arnold’s story began when his owner, Andrea Cohen, awoke to find that dogs had gotten onto her property and two of her six domestic ducks had been killed. She soon found one female duckling, Buttercup, alive on a neighbor’s property, but feared the worst for the other three.

Andrea immediately posted a plea for help on Nextdoor Middle San Pedro, the website that she had founded three weeks earlier as a way to share information with her neighborhood watch group and to bring the community together.

But when two days passed with no word from her neighbors, she had pretty much given up hope. That evening, however, her phone rang. It was a neighbor a quarter of a mile away who had seen her post on Nextdoor.

“She said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but my son went out to feed our chickens and found one of your ducks trying to get into the chicken house,’” recounted Andrea. A minute later there was a knock (and a quack) at her door, and Andrea opened it to see her neighbor’s husband with Arnold in his arms.

Since that day in July, Nextdoor Middle San Pedro has returned to discussions of new neighborhood stop signs, bird watching, and suspicious solicitors. But it’s a comfort to everyone in the neighborhood to know that organizing the return of a beloved pet can be as easy as, well, duck soup.

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Nextdoor is the neighborhood hub for trusted connections and the exchange of helpful information, goods, and services. We believe that by bringing neighbors together, we can cultivate a kinder world where everyone has a neighborhood they can rely on.